For my qualifying concert, Helmut Walcha would not coach Charles-Marie Widor or any American compositions. In his defense, his forte was Germanic composers, and his forte was really a fortissimo!

For some reason I seem to absorb the landscape and cultures where I am planted. A State Divided Symphony was inspired by the 150th anniversary of Missouri's entry into the Civil War.

The greatest thing about writing is that you get to shape more than one life.

If you see that you are a bundle of memories and words, the restless monkey comes to an end.

Dawn appears when it appears.

Street performances?""A little singing. A little martial arts. Some interpretive dance.""Wow.""I know! The Portuguese have taste.

You've got to take the road you need to take, and only you can make that calculation. Not your dad, not your friend. You have to take it if you feel it instinctively.

The apparent goal of the journey is simply the carrot the universe dangles before you to get you to learn the lessons the adventure yields.

In Montana, a math teacher is running for the Senate. Win or lose, she plans on demanding a recount because math is fun.

We must not reject all sexual contact between adults and young people as inherently oppressive.

Poetry ... is the music and painting of the mind.

Now ain nobody tell us it would be fair no love for my father cause the coward wasn't their" {Tu Pac Shukur}